MetalSucks

I’ve never had the privilege of seeing Goes Cube in concert, but I imagine a t-shirt wearing beardo turning to his flannel-weaering beardo friend and going “Listen to this one, broheim! This shit is so good!” about every single song they play. Such is the embarrassment of riches on Another Day Has Passed, the Brooklyn band’s first full-lengther after a string of sold-out EPs: thirteen varied, hard rocking buzzsaw tunes, and nary a bad one in the bunch.

Goes Cube force us to discard our genre tags and recognize the rarity of the word “song” as it pertains to metal. They can write a damn fine one, complete with verses and a chorus and ye olde bridge. Without trying, they also de-compartmentalize all the genre prefixes – the divisions shrink between “post” and “retro,” “neo” and “prog” and “stoner,” “metal” and “rock,” ‘til they become different shades of a single house style. The opening line from “Back to Basics” says it all: “Wreak havoc / Take it all apart / Dismantle / Break it down to its most elemental forms.” Goes Cube write songs the way that Helmet and Quicksand used to, with compact shocks of riff and scrappy melody, loose strings and pneumatic heaviness.

You’ll hear echoes of Torche in the tumbling major key harmonies of “The Only Daughter,” a de-progged Mastodon in the stacked leads of “Bluest Sky” and “Clenching Jaws.” Most of all you’ll hear a band of actual people blasting out smart, heavy jams and singing about big ideas in easy to understand ways. There’s no debating the meaning of a line like “You ask me why/I won’t forgive/’Cos I hold grudges/People never change” from “I Hold Grudges;” there’s no fucking with its convoy of economical riffs. On “Saab Sonnet,” one of the album’s most epic tunes, guitarist/vocalist David Obuchowski tackles nostalgia by longing for a time when an ugly car was his only objective. And goddamn if its second half couldn’t soundtrack those days of middle school, singing our hearts out to Hum on 90s alt-rock radio, longing for autonomy.

Maybe it took a trio of dudes without any formal musical training to write a record that feels so unpretentious and rocks in so many ways. The radio-ready tenor and the hardcore scream abut; metallic downstrokes and rock’n roll strumming share space comfortably. Another Day Has Passed feels nigh boundaryless in its warm embrace of the many forms of layin’ it down. This can only be good for heavy music.

(4 out of 5 horns)

-SR